🐤 Make some noise

🏦 Markets: August’s rocky start continued on Wednesday with all three major indexes finishing the day lower. The Nasdaq led the downward trend with losses of more than 1% as of the closing bell.

Today’s economic news will include the latest inflation data, which investors hope will include enough good news to reverse the recent Wall Street dip.

Not all stocks were down, however. Penn Entertainment finished the day about 9% higher after inking a deal with ESPN (more on that in today’s Breakdown).

🤑 Bet on it: Sports gambling is a rapidly growing business, and that trend is set to accelerate further now that ESPN is in on the game. Penn Entertainment is already a leading sports betting app, but it’s about to be rebranded as ESPN Bet. The use of the iconic sports media name reportedly cost Penn Entertainment a cool $1.5 billion, but the collaboration also comes with some serious promotion across all of ESPN’s different platforms.

🏆 Big winner: We recently shared some stats about how exceedingly unlikely it would be for you to win the massive Mega Millions jackpot, but for one lucky player in Florida, the odds didn’t matter. One ticket sold at a Publix in Neptune Beach had all the numbers for Tuesday’s $1.58 billion jackpot. That sounds like enough to rebrand a gambling app with ESPN’s name, but in reality, the cash payout is a mere $783.3 million.

📞 Hanging up: Believe it or not, some folks actually use their iPhones to make calls when they’re not scrolling through TikTok and Instagram. And if you’re one of those people, then get ready for a change. The button you’ve been using to end a call is about to move from its central position at the bottom of the screen to the lower right alongside other phone functions. The change will be coming when iOS 17 updates are unveiled next month.

🧯 Island fires: Hundreds have been evacuated and at several people are dead amid wildfires spreading across Hawaii’s Maui and Big Island. As of Wednesday evening, warnings remained in place that the fires were likely to continue spreading. Acting Gov. Sylvia Luke issued an emergency declaration and activated the state’s National Guard. More than 14,000 power outages were reported throughout the region yesterday.

It was nearly impossible to avoid the “quiet quitting” trend in the aftermath of COVID-19. As employees gained the upper hand (for a while, at least) and employers were having a hard time filling vacancies, many workers opted to do the bare minimum instead of going above and beyond to please bosses who often didn’t show their appreciation.

There are surely some quiet quitters still out there prioritizing their work-life balance while collecting a paycheck … but there’s also a growing number of other popular buzzwords to describe folks in the workforce.

Do any of these sound like you?

• Grumpy staying: This trend often describes employees who clearly don’t want to be in their current position and are no longer trying to hide it. Whether it’s the workload, the compensation, or the end of remote work options, grumpy stayers are quick to let their frustrations show.
• Quiet thriving: If you can’t afford to quit and aren’t inclined toward grumpiness, you might fall into this category of workers who adopt a strategy of making positive and intentional changes. Quiet thrivers work to empower themselves and gain control at work regardless of the chaos around them.
• Loud laboring: Employees have always looked for recognition, and loud laborers are upfront about it. They often tout their achievements (and might even embellish them) to anyone who will listen. But beware: Experts say this type of behavior can contribute to a dysfunctional workplace.

You might see aspects of more than one of these groups in your own approach to work … or perhaps there’s an entirely different category that describes your professional outlook.

There’s always the “lazy girl job,” a social media-fueled trend of disillusioned workers seeking an easy job that will still pay the bills.

Buying the ticket, finding a parking spot, making it through security, finding your gate number — it all adds up to frustration for airplane passengers. Then comes boarding and the opportunity to relax … only to find that your knees are pressed into the back of the seat in front of you.

Decreasing legroom is nothing new among commercial aircraft, but there’s an interesting story behind what has caused it.

More seats, less room

When air travel was in its infancy, the DC-3 became the first plane used almost entirely for transporting passengers. It was used for decades before the Boeing 737 gained prominence. Now, the Airbus E320 is an industry leader.

Here’s how they stack up:

• The DC-3 carried 28 passengers and had 39 inches of legroom.
• Economy passengers on the 737 received between 30 and 34 inches.
• The A320 can hold 180 passengers with as little as 28 inches of legroom.

It’s not only about height

Sure, tall passengers are more likely to feel cramped in economy seats than their shorter counterparts. But even those of average height will find it uncomfortable if their butt-to-knee ratio (which is used in the development of airplane seats) is longer than average.

If you want to make sure you’ll have enough room on today’s airliners, it’ll cost you.

Adjusted for inflation, it’s actually much cheaper to take a commercial flight than it was 30 years ago. But that’s because all of the extras are now included as add-on expenses — including legroom.

In many cases, you can pay extra for a premium economy seat that will provide a few inches of additional space.

For an experience that resembles the golden age of commercial aviation, however, you’ll need to spring for a first-class ticket where legroom typically rivals the DC-3’s 39 inches of legroom.

When it comes to creating viral social media content, there are a number of different sources that top influencers often use. And while fans might like to think that their favorite personalities are inspired only by their own creativity, there’s a good chance that at least some of those ideas were borrowed (a.k.a. stolen) from somebody else.

So what’s the right response?

A popular TikTok user took another one to task recently with allegations that she copied design ideas from other creators.

TayBeepBoop’s initial post spread rapidly across the platform and sparked widespread debate over whether KaarinJoy was wrong to feature do-it-yourself projects that she had previously posted on her profile.

“I’m about to be so petty, and I’ve never done something like this before, but there is a large creator who is just getting out of hand,” TayBeepBoop said.

KaarinJoy responded by saying that she is “so inspired” by TayBeepBoop’s content but finds it “so crazy to say that no one else can decorate in color or have similar styles to you.”

What do other TikTokers think?

While both creators attracted some level of support for their respective positions, it appears that most users agree that it’s unfair to hold a creator to the standard that he or she cannot post anything like what another user has created.

“A huge part of art is inspiration,” wrote one of KaarinJoy’s supporters. “All artists take inspiration from somewhere, something, or someone. You are someone I really enjoy watching Kaarin!”

TayBeepBoop was apparently paying attention to the backlash and later apologized for her “wild and inappropriate” behavior, adding: “I didn’t think I had done anything wrong. Genuinely, I admit that for days and I didn’t want to be fake and give an apology that I didn’t actually believe.”